What's new in Instant Messaging? | Zoho Desk | Feature Releases | Sept'2024

Improve your business communications with these new and enhanced features in Instant Messaging!

Excellent communication is at the heart of every strong work relationship. These new features and enhancements for professionals will help you build better connections with Instant Messaging.

We're adding more ways to stay connected with your customers! 

We are excited to add Facebook Messenger and Instagram to Zoho Desk's list of IM integrations. You can now easily manage your Meta Business (Facebook) Page's activity alongside messages from various channels on one common platform.

Facebook Messenger

One of the most popular messaging channels, Facebook Messenger, fulfills your business communication needs and provides an easy outlet for communicating with customers and maintaining your social media branding. 

Instagram

Manage your Instagram messages directly from your instant messaging inbox and assist your customers using the same inbox automation features you already rely on, such as blueprints, business hours, and much more.

These new integrations let you link your business account with Zoho Desk and respond to customer inquiries on this popular IM platform.

Business Messaging that matches your needs

Business Messaging

Integrate Zoho Desk's native Business Messaging widget seamlessly across webpages and apps, and customize it to align with your brand's style. This allows seamless hand-offs between bots and agents with automation to facilitate personalized and engaging conversations. Whether integrated independently or through the ASAP help widget, you can manage all your interactions using the Instant Messaging module.

Now, you can personalize your messenger to align with your brand, making your conversational experience accessible on both web and mobile platforms. Engage with a broader customer base through our business messaging channel, which is easy to set up, adaptable to your needs, and scalable for future expansion!

Enhancements in WhatsApp

Multi-WABA support

Great news! We are now supporting multi-WABA for businesses on the instant messaging platform. If you've been using the WhatsApp channel to communicate with your customers, you're likely aware that every WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) needs a verified phone number specifically dedicated to that IM channel for the current WhatsApp Business Platform. Log in for more information: Facebook Business Manager Account.

Acquire in-depth insights on how you spend WhatsApp Credits

Easily identify conversation patterns and anomalies, spot trends quickly with our color-coded graph, and promptly see your actual usage with our clear and easy-to-read conversational payment statements.

Blended conversation is now available across multiple channels

Get ready to experience Bot messaging like never before

You have the option to create a complete Guided Conversations custom bot flow, which enables the development of entirely automated interactions that work in tandem with Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Line, Telegram, and other business messaging channels.

Support teams can set their status as online or offline

Set Business Hours

Now, customers can specify their business hours. This feature provides greater flexibility in managing customer expectations with instant messaging. It allows you to customize business hours for individual teams to accommodate varying time zones or differing work hours for support and sales teams. We have also included the offline message as an automated response informing customers that the support team will be unavailable for an extended period.

Now chat with your customers the way they want

Instant Messaging inbox enhancement

We've enhanced the instant messaging inbox to improve and optimize messaging to provide better tools, features, and capabilities for managing and responding to messages.

Easily configure webhooks in IM

Do more with our Instant Messaging APIs

We introduced a webhook to support all inbound and outbound messages from your applications for custom events across channels.

Promote your business with replies via WhatsApp

Send WhatsApp messages in bulk to your contacts

Agents can now select contacts from the Contacts module to send WhatsApp messages to multiple contacts. The message can be sent to the contact's phone number, mobile number, or both. WhatsApp facilitates effective marketing, engagement, and customer retention management.

 
Send a WhatsApp message to a Contact using quick action

Agents can send WhatsApp messages to single contacts directly from the quick actions list by clicking the drop-down arrow from the top panel next to the plus sign (+). Alternatively, they can use the keyboard shortcut "w+" from any location within the desk. Each time a message is sent to a new contact, a new record is automatically created in the Contacts module.

Omni-channel messaging

IM conversations thread separation

You can now manage all channel conversations in your ticketing threads. This brings all IM channels and their conversations into one easily accessible ticket thread so that you can quickly understand how communication is handled across users.

Reply to IM tickets

Allows support agents to respond to customer inquiries and interact with them seamlessly across different messaging platforms while maintaining a unified view of the conversation history.

Associating agents made easy

Edit channel form

After successfully adding the instant messaging channel, you will be alerted: You have successfully linked your Zoho Desk account with a messaging channel. You can update your preferences for each messaging channel created in your help desk anytime. The preferences allow you to assign different agents for each channel within the channel form.

IM Automation

Triggering Blueprint is designed as a process management tool for IM conversations

Automating ticket actions via Blueprint transitions helps your team save time and streamline ticketing processes for instant messaging conversations. This allows agents to connect with customers and ensures the proper process is followed.

Monitor customer happiness ratings

Measure Customer Satisfaction across IM channels

By enabling the happiness rating, you can ask the customer to rate their experience in a survey that appears after the conversation ends—supported channels are WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and LINE.

With these improvements to your business communications, you can resolve issues faster, boost customer satisfaction, and grow your business successfully.

For more details, refer to the Instant Messaging help docs.

Cheers,

Kavya Rao
The Zoho Desk Team

• Topic Participants

• Kavya Rao Addepalli

  

• Sticky Posts

• Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

  Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote

• WhatsApp pricing changes: Pay per message starting July 1, 2025

  Starting July 1, 2025, WhatsApp is shifting from conversation-based pricing to per-message billing. That means every business-initiated message you send will count. Not just the first one in a 24-hour window. Pricing updates on the WhatsApp Business Platform

• Live Webinar - Work smarter with Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace integration

  Hello customers! Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace are coming together for a webinar on 14th May, 2024. Zoho Workplace is a suite of productivity apps for email, chat, docs, calls, and more at one single place. Zoho Desk is closely integrated with a few tools

• Apple iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates for Zoho Desk users

  Hello Zoho Desk users! Apple recently announced the release of iOS 17 and iPad OS 17. These latest OS updates will help you stay productive and efficient, through interactive and seamless user experiences. Zoho Desk has incorporated the updates to help

• Zoho Desk Cheat Sheet For The Year-End

  Check out these Zoho Desk best practices to end this year on a high and have a great one ahead! #1 Set Business (Holiday) Hours - If you have limited working hours, please make sure you restrict your business hours or set them as holidays for the coming days. Let your customers know when you will, and won't, be available. #2 Update the Annual Holiday List - Check the holidays for the new year and update the holiday schedule. Usually, holidays from the current year will be carried over for the next

• Recent Topics

• What formula to use in computing total hrs and decimal hrss

  So , my data includes log im column , 2 breaks with 2 columns that says back and lunch and 1 column that says back and logged out. What formula should i use to be able to automatically have my total hours as I input time in each column? Thankyou

• Notes of Tasks in Zoho CRM

  Hello, Is there a way to filter the Notes that appear on a Task to only show the notes related to that specific Task and not display all the Notes of the objects related to that Task (Accounts, Contacts, Deal, etc). In essence, our team struggles to understand

• Passing the CRM

  Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when

• How to next stage blueprint in Zoho Creator

  Hello, I have question, its possible to next stage blueprint? in case, Start - (first stage) Leader 1 (with condition 1) - (second stage) Leader 2 (with condition 2) - (third stage) Leader 3 (with condition 3) - (fourth stage) After first stage, i want

• Feature Request: Email Follow-Up Sequences Similar to Zoho CRM

  I’m wondering if Zoho Recruit is planning to introduce a feature similar to the Email Automation – Follow-Up Sequences that is available in Zoho CRM. In CRM, this allows users to send a series of timed follow-up emails triggered by specific actions (for

• Duplicated Notebooks

  Out of the blue, almost all of my notebooks got duplicated and the different copies contain different information. Some seem like older copies than the others. I use the linux desktop app and sometimes the Android app. I assume that the sync failed at some point and was unable to merge the two versions together. But I'm afraid to add anything else to my notebook because if it can't properly sync 5 notebooks with only a handful of notes each, what will happen when I have hundreds of notes and I lose

• Currency limitation when integrating Zoho CRM & Zoho Books

  Brief Video of Problem: https://www.loom.com/share/d61d1d07d0904e149d80c1901a22418e. Background ·       Our business is based in Australia and we have to have Zoho Books in AUD to comply with tax and reporting regulations in Australia. ·       We sell

• Multi-select Lookup does not have Advanced filter options in CRM

  With much fanfare Zoho announced the advanced filter options for CRM lookup fields which was a nice addition. This feature is not available for Multi-Select lookup fields. Will it be rolled out in the next 3-6 months, considering the standard lookup filter

• Experience effortless record management in CRM For Everyone with the all-new Grid View!

  Hello Everyone, Hope you are well! As part of our ongoing series of feature announcements for Zoho CRM For Everyone, we’re excited to bring you another type of module view : Grid View. In addition to Kanban view, List view, Canvas view, Chart view and

• Unable to copy into a new document

  Whe I create a new Writer doc and attemp to copy and past I get this message. The only way to copy into a document is I duplicate an existing document, erase the text and save it under a different name and then paste the information. Not ideal. Can you

• Kaizen #157: Flyouts in Client Script

  Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting edition of our Kaizen series, where we explore fresh insights and innovative ideas to help you discover more and expand your knowledge!In this post, we'll walk through how to display Flyouts in Client Script

• Customize User Invites with Invitation Templates

  Invitation Templates help streamline the invitation process by allowing users to create customized email formats instead of sending a one-size-fits-all email. Different invitation templates can be created for portal users and client users to align with

• Admin Control Over Profile Picture Visibility in Zoho One

  Hello Zoho Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, as per Zoho’s design, each user can manage the visibility of their profile picture from their own Zoho Accounts page: accounts.zoho.com → Personal Information → Profile Picture → Profile Picture

• Published Course Not Reflecting In Hub

  Hi! I am trying to create micro-learning courses for our team to be available for self-guided learning. I have published the courses with enrollment settings open to all users of the hub, but they don't appear to be available for enrollment. Am I missing

• Unlock Locked Users via Zoho One Mobile App

  Hello Zoho One Team, We have noticed that in the Zoho One web admin panel, we can unlock a locked user when needed. However, when using the Zoho One mobile app, there is no indication that a user is locked, nor is there an unlock button similar to what

• Tip #47- Stay Ahead with Automated Scheduled Reports in Zoho Assist- 'Insider Insights'

  We’ve made it easier for you to stay informed, even when you’re busy managing remote sessions! With Scheduled Reports in Zoho Assist, you can now automatically receive detailed insights about your remote support and unattended access activities directly

• Colour Coded Flags in Tasks Module List View

  I really like the colour coded flags indicating the status of the tasks assigned to a Contact/Deal in the module list view. It would be a great addition to have this feature available in the list view of activities/tasks. I understand you have the Due

• Uploading data to S3

  Has anyone successfully uploaded data from Creator to S3 using the InvokeURL command or any other method in Deluge? (keywords: S3, AWS, Amazon, bucket)

• UPS Label size when generated via Zoho

  We've integrated UPS with Zoho inventory. When creating and downloading the shipping labels they are created in a larger paper size. I'd like them to be generated to print on a 4x6 printer. Zoho have told me I need to do this within our UPS portal. UPS

• Credit Management: #4 Credits on Unused Period

  Recall a familiar situation. You sign up for a monthly gym membership. You pay the subscription fee upfront, get motivated, and show up consistently for the first week. Then, suddenly, you get caught up in work deadlines, travel plans, or a dip in motivation.

• Zoho Analytics Automatically Deletes Queries and Reports When a Synced CRM Field Is Removed

  We’ve encountered a serious and recurring issue that poses a massive data integrity risk for any Zoho Analytics customer using Zoho CRM integration. When a field is deleted in Zoho CRM — even an unused one — Zoho Analytics automatically deletes every

• Prevent new Record Association

  Hello all, We have a small sales organization therefore, it's helpful for everyone on the sales team to be able to view the full list of accounts to assist in preventing duplicate accounts from being created. However we want to prevent people from creating

• Tip of the Week #73– Automate workflow with Make integration.

  Make is a no-code workflow automation platform designed to connect your favorite apps and automate repetitive tasks across services. By integrating Make with Zoho TeamInbox, you can streamline everyday inbox management and save valuable time. With this

• Viewing attachments

  I'm using a Web Form integrated in my web site to collect Leads several info, including a image upload. In order to to approve each lead, we have to view the image uploaded. Unfortunately, in the Leads view, the Attachments can only be downloaded, not

• Kaizen #89 - Color Coding using Client Script

  Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting Kaizen post. Today let us see how you can apply color codes to the List and Detail Pages of Zoho CRM using Client Script. Need for color code in Zoho CRM When you mark things with different colors as a

• Instant Sync of Zoho CRM Data?

  With how valuable Zoho Analytics is to actually creating data driven dashboards/reports, we are surprised that there is no instant or near instant sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics. Waiting 3 hours is okay for most of our reports, but there are

• Is it possibly to directly set the tax amount on order instead of indirectly via tax rates?

  We own an eCommerce application and want to funnel submitted orders from that system into Zoho. We're already calculating tax in our application and just need a way to set it in Zoho. We tried to use Zoho's tax objects for tax by setting the rates to

• Zoho account sign in with passkey

  Hello, I am trying to sign in using passkey, but the option doesn't show up in the web and is disabled in Oneauth on mobile, saying the admin has restricted the use. On the Admin page in Security MFA I can find no option for passkey. Help would be greatly

• Rescheduled US meetups: Zoho Desk user meetups are coming to seven U.S. cities in October and November, 2025

  Hello to our Zoho Desk users in the United States, We're excited to share the revised dates for the upcoming Zoho User Groups happening across the US this summer. Our product experts are heading to seven cities throughout the country, and for the first

• Checklists as templates

  Is it possible to save checklists as templates to reuse them in other tasks? Example: I have a web project. I maintain individual web URLs as tasks. Within the tasks the same checklist should be used again and again: - Page created in CMS - Properties

• Send mass email using my secondary email

  Hello, When I send an email to just one person from Zoho CRM, a complete email editor appears, where I can choose which of my email addresses I want to use in the From field. When I send a mass email, there is not such option. I can only select the email

• Add the same FROM email to multiple department

  Hi, We have several agents who work with multiple departments and we'd like to be able to select their names on the FROM field (sender), but apparently it's not possible to add a FROM address to multiple departments. Is there any way around this? Thanks.

• ZOHO TEAM INBOX Calendar Integration

  The Problem: Clients send meeting invitations to our TeamInbox address. TeamInbox receives these invites, but we cannot accept them. We do not use individual inboxes for transparency purposes. Ideal Solution: A way to accept calendar invites sent to our

• Unearned / Deferred Revenue Automatic Calculation for Subscriptions

  As a SaaS business, we have multiple active subscriptions with varying dates and amounts. Is there a way to have a monthly automatic calculation for all of them that debits or credits the unearned revenue and revenue accounts accordingly? Alternatively,

• Zoho Desk Limit for Comma Separated Queries

  Hi, I have just discovered a limit that I believed is not mentioned in any of Zoho's documentations. My search query looks like so: "query: {"accountId":"786050000091629966,786050000163589273,786050000163589427,786050000162753705,786050000162112971,786050000161987643,786050000160752868,786050000167089504,786050000167089378,786050000167089024,786050000167070005,786050000166295256,786050000128153693,786050000110560021,786050000046594575,786050000039106461,786050000002225356,786050000076889093,786050000047895103,786050000043365354,786050000044765191,786050000041790249,786050000040359116,786050000037945198,786050000024605077,786050000000525015,786050000155333895,786050000157741437,786050000000718125,786050000011574353,","departmentId":"786050000042648070","status":"Finished","sortBy":"createdTime","customField2":"cf_completion_date:2025-01-28T03:00:00.000Z,2025-10-28T03:00:00.000Z","customField3":"cf_billed:false"}"

• Module Name doesn't exist

  I am trying to create a module named Activity, with plural Activities, but I have an error that module name already exists. This module is doesn't exist, and I don't have a single field called Activity or Activities.

• Zoho Desk iOS and Android app update: AI powered: Reply Assistance and Refine Messages on IM module.

  Hello everyone! We are excited to introduce new AI powered features on the IM module of the Zoho Desk app. Reply Assistance: Reply Assistance generates suggested responses for incoming chat messages, which you can directly insert into the conversation

• Unify All Zoho Video Meeting Experiences into One Standardized Platform

  Hi Zoho Team, We would like to share an important user experience concern regarding the current state of video meeting functionality across the Zoho ecosystem. The Problem Within Zoho, there are multiple ways to initiate or schedule a video meeting: Zoho

• Is it possible to embed Youtube shorts?

  Hi Zoho desk support, This is Ryan from Accuver America. While I'm trying to create a knowledge base article with embed video, I ran into this issue. "www.youtube.com refuse to connect" A little bit background is that because this video is recorded on

• Zoho Inventory - Move Orders

  Quick question about Move Orders... Why is there no status to say something like "Draft", "In Progress" and "Completed", similar to Transfer Orders? I'm assuming that when something needs to be moved it should be planned in Inventory, executed and then

• Next Page